Alienware 13 OLED Laptop Review: 13 Inches Of Gorgeous

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Alienware 13 OLED PCMark 8 And 3DMark Performance

PCMark 8 v2 is the latest version in Futuremark’s series of popular PC benchmarking tools. It is designed to test the performance of all types of systems, from tablets to desktops. PCMark 8 offers five separate benchmark tests--plus battery life testing for mobile platforms—to help consumers find the devices that offer the right combination of efficiency and performance for their particular use case.

PCMark 8 Benchmarks

Productivity and System Level Benchmarking

This latest version of the suite improves the Home and Work benchmarks with new tests using popular open source applications for image processing, video editing and spreadsheets. These are trace-based tests and a wide variety of workloads have also been added to the Work benchmark to better reflect the way PCs are used in enterprise environments.

We tested three of the benchmark modules: Home, Work and Storage...

Once again the Alienware 13 OLED comes up just a hair flat in the storage test but makes up for that with stronger Work and Home scores that are in line with its robust internal configuration. The AW 13 actually posted the two top scores we've seen in this test, from our group of 5 pound or less laptops.

3DMark Firestrike Extreme And Sky Diver

Synthetic DirectX Gaming And Graphics Testing

The 3DMark Fire Strike test on its "Extreme" preset, as well as the newer Sky Diver benchmark, push a lot more workload to the graphics engine on board the group of premium and gaming notebooks we have now thrown in the mix with the Dell-Alienware 13 OLED laptop. Here we've worked in an assortment of midrange to upper-end mobile GPU-enabled machines to show you how the AW 13 stacks up versus diehard gaming notebooks.

Not surprisingly, the Alienware 13 OLED and its GeForce GTX 965M GPU put up respectable numbers, just a notch ahead of a couple of GeForce GTX 960M-equipped machines. Take note of the ZenBook's score in the Sky Diver test. The Asus ZenBook UX501 is a very thin machine comparatively but still weighs about 5 pounds since it's a 15-inch device. However, we noticed there was a bit of excess throttling going with its GPU, which is not the case for the Alienware 13 OLED and it shows in the benchmark results even more so. So, yes, the GeForce GTX 965M is slightly more powerful for the AW 13 but Alienware does a better job of keeping its GPU cool and letting it stretch its legs as well.